He Was Never Really There
by SuperSonicBoom12
Summary: It was just a dream, right? Just a terrible dream? Sonic wasn't dead. He couldn't have been! But I don't know... Was he ever there to begin with...? Rated T just to be safe :) Please read and review!


_It couldn't be true._

_I stared in complete horror at the sight before me. Sonic's eyes were wide as he tried to take in what had just happened. On his face, I saw pure shock and... was that... Fear? _

_Sonic was scared. It was then that I knew, there wasn't much hope. Sonic was never scared._

_It couldn't be true._

_Yet, it had to have been._

_I continued to stare. I stared at Sonic, but... not directly at him... at the hole that a laser had bore straight through him._

_I felt the heat of tears in my eyes. He slowly looked down at the wound in his core and still gaped in terror at it. Then, his eyes closed and he collapsed. _

_It was then that I snapped out of my stare._

_"SONIC!"_

_I ran to his side, tears flowing out of my eyes. _

_I knelt down next to him and shook him lightly saying, "Sonic, please. You have to get up. Please! Don't go!"_

_It was no use though. I knew, he was already gone. _

_"M-maybe I-I can get the Chaos Emeralds to bring him back. It's worked before. I-I just have to find them..." _

_"Hohoho! Fat chance of that, fox boy."_

_I looked over at Eggman and the robot he had used to kill my friend. I glared in hatred at him. _

_"The Chaos Emeralds are too far away, by the time you get them, he will be too far gone! Ho Ho Ho!"_

_I closed my eyes to suppress the tears; I knew he was right. "You're a monster..." I muttered._

_I opened my eyes, releasing a new set of hot tears, and looked at Sonic. I couldn't believe it. _

_"Sonic..."_

* * *

><p>I woke up with tears in my eyes. My covers had been tossed around and laid at odd angles.<p>

I slowly tried to take in what had happened.

'_It was just a dream. It was just a dream...'_

But it was more than that. It was a pure nightmare.

But it wasn't true, right? Dreams aren't real. Sonic was fine.

I relaxed. It had to have just been a dream.

My two tails flicked up and down groggily. I looked over at my digital clock. It read 8:45. Today was January 28th.

I looked out my only window. A light dusting of snow had covered the ground over night and flurries were still falling. The sky looked cloudy and full of gloom. It had a sense of darkness that made the beauty of the snow lost on me.

The tenebrous weather seemed to coincide with the darkness of my nightmare. I tried to remind myself once more that it was only a dream, but it felt far too real.

I shook my head.

_'He is fine. Go visit him later and see for yourself," _I thought to myself.

Though, it did seem weird to have such a vivid nightmare, especially one that was so terrible. I couldn't think of why I would have a dream of a friend dying. But, I decided to ignore it.

I got up out of my bed and walked downstairs. Sometimes I thought my house was a little too big for just me. I didn't really need two stories. But, Sonic did stay here a lot, so it was nice to have room for him.

I walked into the kitchen and pulled out a box of cereal. My thoughts about my dream still bothered me, but maybe a little breakfast would make me feel better.

As I started to reach for a bowl, the door bell rang.

I went to answer it, not caring who saw me in my sloppy, obviously-just-woke-up appearance.

In the doorway, stood Sonic. He wore a scarf in the frigid temperatures outside.

"Hiya, Tails!"

Alarms went off in my head that told me that he couldn't be standing here right now. I knew something was wrong with this picture. Yet, he was here... not dead.

I smiled and greeted him, "Hi Sonic. What are you doing here?"

"I was on a morning run and decided to stop by. You wanna come along?"

I looked back at the interior of my house. My bowl was sitting empty on the counter.

I looked back at Sonic and shook my head.

"Thanks, Sonic, but I'm not really in the mood for a run."

"Well, we can just walk if you want," the blue one insisted, obviously wanting me to come with him. I thought for a second. '_I guess a walk couldn't hurt.'_

I nodded. "Alright. I guess," I said, giving a small smile.

In the coat closet next to the front door, I grabbed a coat and pulled it on. We walked out off my front porch and into the light snow.

XxXxXxXx

Two sets of footprints were left in the snow as we went by. The sun was nonexistent in the sky and only clouds were seen.

Tree branches were weighed down with snow and drooped from their trunk. It was very quiet outside, almost eerie. The only sound I heard was Sonic and my breathing and footsteps.

I was actually kind of happy that I could get out of the house with Sonic. Seeing him made me feel a little reassured. I felt like I needed that reassurance.

"Hey, Tails, let's go this way."

I looked to where Sonic was looking. He was facing a little dirt road to the left. I felt like I had been down there before. We began to walk down it.

Immediately, I got bad vibes from the path. I wasn't sure why, but it made me feel something deep in my gut. Something bad.

"So, Tails,"

I looked at the hedgehog next to me.

"Have you been working on any projects lately?"

I immediately perked up and started talking about my mechanic work. "Oh yeah! I've been trying to add some new upgrades to the Tornado and the Tornado 2. It should make them fly a lot faster. Also I added a few more attack features to them with a lot more projectiles. If I can only figure out a way to reverse the magnetism of the Chaos Emeralds in them so that they can transfer the energy into the engine. Then, I have to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and-"

Sonic started chuckling.

I scratched my head, slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry, didn't mean to get all geeky on you..."

Sonic smiled, "It's fine. Sounds like you've been busy lately."

I gave a slight smile. "Yeah..."

I looked away from him and started to observe our surroundings. Most of the forestation was vast beyond the path, but was also dead and lifeless. Leaves had long since fallen from their host branches and now decayed on the ground. The whole area seemed to be drained of any life.

The clouds had thickened since I woke up and the snow started to fall faster. The weather began to take a change to a more depressing and frightening tone.

I stopped walking, causing Sonic to as well.

"Sonic, maybe we should turn back. We might get caught in a blizzard."

Sonic looked at the falling snow as though considering heading back, but promptly shook his head.

"Nah, it's just a little snow. And anyways, I wanna show you something," he pointed down the path, "It's down here."

'_What could be down there? This is just a dead walkway.'_

He continued and motioned for me to follow. I continued walking hesitantly.

My stomach began to churn. I felt like whatever Sonic wanted to show me, wasn't something good. Again, I felt déjà vu from the dead path. It was like I knew exactly where we were headed, but my mind couldn't- or didn't want to- remember.

I looked at Sonic nervously. I closed my eyes as images of my dream flooded in once more.

'_But... It... It was just a bad dream... It doesn't mean anything.'_

But it was so real I could have sworn it meant something. It could've meant something bad was about to happen. Or already happened...

I looked at Sonic. He _was _standing in front of me so it couldn't have been that... right? The nightmare had been so vivid that I wasn't sure, even with proof standing right in front of me.

My tails flinched nervously at the memory.

The dream had consisted of a few more scenes. Some of me attempting to revive Sonic, crying hysterically. Some were of Eggman laughing at me. Some were of me telling our friends about his fate. And... There were some of a funeral. _His _funeral.

Everything in the dream had been so realistic and felt so true. My mind felt a vague remembrance of the scenes, but again, refused to remember them. I refused to remember.

"Um, Sonic?"

The hedgehog looked at me.

"Yeah?"

I stared at the ground while we walked and continued.

"D-Do you believe dreams could mean something?"

Sonic looked at me quizzically and answered, "Well, I guess it depends on the dream."

"A nightmare, a-about... well..."

Sonic didn't really seem to need anymore detail about the dream. He stopped walking, prompting me to as well. He looked at me straight in the eyes.

"Do you think it meant something, Tails? Could the events of your nightmare have been real?" Sonic asked me in a suddenly serious tone.

"Well... No, I guess they really couldn't have been real. I mean nothing can even prove they were..." I said as I tried to take back my question, suddenly feeling silly for asking.

"Are you sure?"

I looked up at Sonic. He was looking at me as though he was trying to tell me something, but wasn't able to say it directly.

"Well, I mean, It couldn't have, I guess. Everything is fine in real life. The nightmare did look kinda fake now that I think about it. And everything looks fine out here," I said gesturing towards our surroundings.

Sonic nodded with almost a look of disappointment in his eyes. He continued walking and muttered, "Looks can be deceiving."

I was somewhat stunned for a moment. Sonic had acted like he knew something I didn't. It was like he was trying to tell me otherwise in my doubts about the nightmare's realism.

I subconsciously swept my bangs out of my eyes in wonder.

Our conversation only brought up more confusion about the truth of the dream.

My stomach churned with discomfort and stress.

"Alright, Tails, we're here."

I looked up and saw what was ahead of us.

It was... a cemetery.

There was that feeling again.

That feeling that I had been here before and regretted it. It felt like that barrier of my mind that was neglecting my memory had been cracked.

I started to have flashbacks to my dream- if I can even call it that anymore.

I knew something about it was real.

"Sonic, why are we here?" I asked a little more sternly that I intended.

"This way," he responded, ignoring my question.

He lead me onward towards the graves. I could feel my heart beating faster and faster and my stomach began to churn even more. I felt like I was going to be sick.

I had been here before.

In my dream... This is where the funeral was held...

The wind began to pick up and the sky darkened even more. Snow started to grow heavier and made it hard to see. It quickly began to stick to the ground. Soon enough we were in a full blown snow storm.

The wind made it hard to hear and the snow made it hard to make out anything in my way. Luckily, Sonic's blue stuck out in the blizzard like a sore thumb. I followed his faint figure.

"Sonic!" I shouted through the storm, "We should turn back! C'mon!"

He kept walking. I looked back anxiously at the way we came. Well, I wasn't leaving Sonic in the middle of a storm, that was for sure.

I walked against the furious wind, propelling my tails, at times, to help me push forward. I followed Sonic to wherever he was so keen on going, even in this weather. I wasn't sure what it was, but apparently it was pretty important to him.

We walked along the various grave sites until, eventually, Sonic stopped at one. I stopped too and looked at it.

The engraving on the stone was hard to make out, but I was able to.

_R.I.P_

_Sonic the Hedgehog_

_June 23, 1991- January 28, 2013_

I gasped as I read and reread the words on the gravestone.

"But- But how-?" I stammered. How did any of this make sense? Sonic was right here! I turned to him to ask him what this meant.

He wasn't there.

I looked all around through the ferocious weather, but found no trace of him. I kept glancing between the grave and my surrounds. I thought of my dream.

It was only after many moments of confusion and stammering that the dam in my mind, holding back all the memories, had broken. My dream was true.

And only then did I realize that he was never really there.

He died.

Sonic died.

One year to this day. January 28th.

In my sorrow, I had imagined him.

My dream was too horrific for me to believe.

So I imagined him. The one thing I wanted back. Him.

He was nothing but a hallucination.

I fell to my knees and stared at the tombstone. I felt the heat behind my eyes as tears welled up behind them.

My brother really was dead. And I was too stupid to accept it.

I broke into a spell of hysterical sobbing. It had been true. My dream had been true. And today had been a hallucination. I lead myself here. I understand that now.

It was my choice to bring myself here, I just needed something to hold on to, so I imagined him.

But that only kept me from seeing the real truth.

Sonic was dead.

I was alone in a snow storm. Ironic, considering I only stayed in the storm for him.

I had not been strong enough to accept his death.

And he was never really there...

* * *

><p><strong>Gee what's up with me and one-shots lately? I am just full of them. I still have another that is yet to be finished. <strong>I have the slightest feeling I might delete this one later though, I don't particularly like it... But even so, I might not! :)<strong>**

**Anyway thanks for reading! Hope you liked the surprise ending!**

**Remember to Review and Favorite and otherwise! Thanks!**

**Until next time,**

**Peace Out! ;)**


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